


Nocturnal Habits

by cazflibs



Series: The Ace Chronicles: Slash! [7]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:39:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cazflibs/pseuds/cazflibs
Summary: Having retired from his tenure as Ace to be reunited with Lister, Rimmer is finding the sleeping arrangements to be rather troublesome.





	Nocturnal Habits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starbug1988](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbug1988/gifts).



> This fic references events in "I Bruise Easily", so you may or may not wish to read that first. It also references an event from his time as Ace which is a future work...
> 
> Dedicated to starbug1988 who gave me the following prompt: "My nightmares are usually about losing you." They had specified that this fic was to include both angst and 'cuddly fluff' - a request I initially panicked at, as I've never really written the two genres in one fic. Hopefully I've managed to pull it off :-/

Life, Rimmer had learned a long time ago, was a series of habits.

And whilst some were entrenched since childhood in reaction to infantile fears, others were forged from nightmares in far later life. Nightmares that, even as an adult, could still hold an equally terrifying dominion in the dark shadows under the bed.

One thing young Arnold had learned from the very beginning - thanks to taunting brothers and an abusive father - was to never _ever_ leave himself without a route of escape. Even when you’re sleeping, know your exits.

Three million years later, during his tenure as Ace, he never thought that this unhealthily-obsessive habit would become somewhat of a life-saver on many an occasion.

However, another bad habit had become rather rooted during his heroic secondment. If someone suddenly grabs you, you immediately fight back - either pin down, disarm or subdue. Because more than likely, they were looking to kill you.

Problem was, despite having returned home a couple of months previously, it was a habit he was yet to shake off. And the fitfully-sleeping hologram hadn't reckoned on an equally-slumbering Lister jerkingly latching onto him in the night; snaring him suddenly in a desperate grasp with no obvious prompt or explanation. 

It probably hadn't helped that Rimmer had been entangled in nightmares at the time; where swarms of simulants were attacking from all sides in a furious flurry of blows and gunfire. So the hologram had reacted exactly as his training had instructed him.

The instant he was grabbed, Rimmer wrenched himself awake with a strangled cry. Breaking free from the grasp in a controlled windmill of limbs, he instinctively whipped back to fasten a tight grip on his attacker’s wrists, rolled his weight across to straddle his unseen nemesis, and pinned him down hard with a snarl.

As the nightmare slowly dissolved away, Rimmer’s visible panting slowed as he realised quite who he was holding hostage in the soft, warm folds of the bedsheets.

“Not now, man,” Lister mumbled drowsily. With dark eyes firmly closed, he was clearly still lost in slumber. “I'm tryin’ to get some shut-eye here.” 

As the familiar warthog-like snoring started up once more, Rimmer rolled his eyes before releasing him gently. Good grief, the man could sleep through a nuclear explosion.

In fact, Lister _had_ once slept through a nuclear explosion. However, there were semantics to be considered there and allowances to be made, so.

Unsurprising then, that the man found it near-impossible to stay awake after sex. Indeed, a few nights later, the very moment that they'd become disentangled, Lister was slipping helplessly into a post-coital coma.

The sated, sweaty glow soon stood out cold on Rimmer’s forehead as he clocked the man’s chosen sleeping position. He tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Listy?” he hissed. When no response came, he nudged him hard instead. “Lister!”

The Scouser jerked awake with a snort, paddling hard to briefly break the surface of consciousness. “Wha’?” he murmured sleepily.

“You're on my side of the bed.”

“I’m wha’?”

“ _You_ are on _my_ side of the bed,” Rimmer repeated, agitated. “You know I sleep on the outside.”

“Yeah but I'm _cozy_ ,” Lister sang lazily as his face snuggled into Rimmer’s pillow. Just as a rare smile began to pluck at the corner of the hologram’s mouth at the annoyingly adorable reply, he shattered the illusion with: “And I don't wanna climb over you if I need to pee in the night.”

Rimmer rolled his eyes as he sank back onto the pillow. “And they say that romance is dead.”

Lister snored in reply. Rimmer arched an eyebrow. Much as it irked the man to relinquish his place, he let it slide. 

During his tenure as Ace, the computer had always clucked at him to be ready for anything - even when hosting nocturnal company. She’d always warned him that it was safest to sleep on the outside of the bed if someone insisted on joining him; not only to protect _them_ should Ace’s enemies suddenly burst in, but to protect _himself_ should his enemy already be nestled in the bedsheets with him.

Rimmer swallowed thickly. It had already happened to him once. He had no intention of it ever happening again. 

He hadn't realised that his eyes had screwed closed until he blinked them open once more. Rimmer stared up at the underside of the bunk above, steadying his breath in one long exhale.

“I'm _not_ Ace,” he told himself in a low murmur. “That's over. I'm home now.”

Rimmer glanced back at the warm, snoozing man beside him. Lister wasn't exactly making it easy to shrug off bad habits and finally relax. Each and every night for the last few days now, Rimmer had been startled awake again and again when the man had grabbed onto him suddenly in the dark. It was leaving him feeling constantly on edge.

Turning over to hunker down into the pillow, Rimmer forced himself to close his eyes and unwind. Maybe Lister didn't like the feeling of being trapped either, he thought to himself. Exhausted after that evening’s liaison, he began to drift off, lulled by the gentle snoring beside him. Perhaps sleeping on the outside made him feel safer too. 

It was only natural that he'd dream about it that night. If it was playing on his mind, it usually came back to haunt him.

It was only snatches of sensation and memory, but it was enough to utterly terrify him. The flash of horribly-familiar violet eyes. The panic as he fought to escape her tangle of limbs. Her silken voice that sang to him mockingly as the simulants surged forward to drag him from the bunk.

_“We've got you now, darling.”_

The moment that Lister’s arm inevitably snaked across to snare him, Rimmer reacted in the only way his survival instinct knew how. With a panicked yell, he fought to free himself whilst Lister fought to cling on. And as Rimmer blindly fumbled to subdue his attacker, the pair rolled off-balance and tumbled out of the bunk in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets.

The thin cotton of the sheets did very little to cushion the fall, and the blunt force of the impact wrenched Lister awake.

“Argh! I've not got nothin’ worth nickin’!” he blurted sleepily as he wrenched at pinned wrists. It may have been years since he’d slept rough in the crime-ridden streets of Mimas but clearly some habits were hard to shake.

Bleary hazel eyes focused on the man beneath him. “Lister?!” His face clouded, unimpressed. “Oh, for the love of - ” 

Rimmer scrabbled to walk back his hands against Lister’s chest until he could push himself away to sit upright, ignoring the wheeze of protest. He glared at the man incredulously, his dignity somewhat marred by the ruffled muss of curls that sprouted from his head. “Why the smeg did you grab onto me like that? You scared the life out of me!”

Lister struggled upright against a tangle of bedsheets as he stared back, dumbfounded. “Alright, man, keep your hair on!” he soothed. Reaching out a hand to tame the hologram’s curly mop, he scowled as it was batted away. “What? It's not like I _meant_ to scare you!”

“You've been doing it every night for the last smegging week,” Rimmer ground out.

“Oh.” Lister grimaced guiltily. “Right.”

“So what is it, hmm?” Rimmer challenged. “What on Io makes it so damn essential that you have to latch onto me like a smegging limpet every night?”

Shifting self-consciously, Lister gently shrugged bare shoulders. “I - ” Dark eyes focused firmly on the floor as he fought to find the right words. “I guess I get bad dreams.”

Rimmer almost scoffed at the naivety. “You think _you_ get bad dreams?” he echoed dismissively, a disbelieving shake of the head not far behind it. The countless near-death experiences that continued to haunt him were enough to keep a world-class psychiatrist occupied for the next decade. 

“Do you have _any_ comprehension of what it's like to still have nightmares about my time away?” Despite damning everything back behind a harsh glare, raw unbridled emotion threatened to seep through. “How utterly smegging terrified they _still_ make me feel?”

Lister returned his gaze unabashed, pained eyes pinching as they clambered to say what his mouth couldn't seem to. “Yeah,” he nodded tightly. “I do.”

Riled by the apparent dismissiveness of the man’s reply, Rimmer’s face hardened. “So let me guess.” Irritable and sleep-deprived, his snarkiness couldn't help but surface. “You get nightmares about running out of lamb biriyani?” he sniped. “That someone accidentally tapes over your Zero-Gee videos?” The hologram folded his arms sullenly. “Or that Kryten is trying to give you your annual bath?”

Staring back into the onslaught of insults, the calm façade of Lister’s expression held firm whilst the hidden supports struggled to hold its weight. “My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he replied, voice wavering audibly. “Again.”

And with those simple words, every iota of anger and frustration melted instantly from the pointed angles of Rimmer’s face.

Lister swallowed, blinking quickly to hold his gaze. “And that, this time,” he managed, “you don’t come back.”

Hazel eyes sank closed with a sigh. It was a nightmare that he’d seen become a reality before. 

He remembered, all-too-painfully, the impact that such a loss had had on one particular version of Lister in a dimension far too close for comfort. He could still recall the broken devastation that had near-drowned the man in grief and sorrow. A loss that Rimmer had caused and, paradoxically, only Rimmer could ease.

He'd never told Lister about the encounter with his alternate incarnation. In all likelihood, Lister already knew anyway; with his somewhat irritating ability to be able to read him like a book. But it remained a closed chapter of his life, one to be shelved not shared, and the pair had reached a silent vow never to speak of it.

Guilty eyes searched Lister’s before Rimmer wordlessly gathered him up into long spindly arms and held onto him like he'd never let go again.

Whilst he gave no resistance to the hug, Lister bit his lip hard as he held back the tears. Finally, a shuddered sigh escaped unknowingly at the fleeting but unmistakable stroking of a thumb against his neck.

In an infinite, often-hostile cosmos, it was the only place Lister now felt truly safe - in the embrace of an immortal man who had given up being adored by countless far-flung inhabitants across the multiverse, to simply be loved in body and soul by just one.

Lister smiled, tearful but content. Despite the chill of the metal-grated deck beneath them and the awkward snare of the bedsheets that held them entangled, it was a moment that was almost perfect. That is, of course, until the hologram broke the silence thoughtfully.

“I thought you were going to say ‘GELF tarantulas’.”

With the finesses of romance inelegantly flung out of the airlock, Lister dissolved into a helpless fit of giggles. Chin resting on the man’s head, Rimmer merely smirked silently.

 _Now_ it was perfect.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Other Side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688033) by [cazflibs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cazflibs/pseuds/cazflibs)




End file.
